A Wordsmith, A Viking, A Penguin

In the mid-1970s, Bascove began visiting the Jung Institute in New York City, to learn more about the imagery and symbolism associated with dreams, while she was experimenting with gouache paintings of what she called “dream imagery.”[1] Robertson Davies, meanwhile, was attending the Institute as a lecturer, although the two never crossed paths during this time. 

Bascove moved to Paris, France from 1977 to 1980, to develop her painting practice, with the intention of working exclusively as a fine artist, as opposed to an illustrator. Upon her return to New York, while working with Viking, she was assigned to a new edition of Davies’ novel The Rebel Angels, which was released in 1981. Over the next 15 years, Bascove produced illustrations for the covers for 16 of Davies’ novels, the last of which was The Cunning Man, published in 1994 by McClelland and Stewart. They corresponded semi-regularly beginning in 1985, and the two exchanged letters until Davies’ death in 1995.

There was an undeniable serendipity to Bascove and Davies’ working relationship: they were both Jungians and interested in the hidden facets of peoples’ minds—and unbeknownst to each other, were attending the centre of Jungian thought in North America at the same time; they both loved books, and both worked keenly, in their ways, to help bring literature and stories to the world; they appreciated many of the same works of art. 

This was not lost on Bascove, who likened their writer-artist partnership to being “on the same river,” in that they both believed very strongly in the importance of literacy and education, and the interconnectedness between people and societies.[2]

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